org.apache.commons.codec

Interface Decoder

All Known Subinterfaces:

BinaryDecoder, StringDecoder

All Known Implementing Classes:

Base32, Base64, BaseNCodec, BCodec, BinaryCodec, Hex, PercentCodec, QCodec, QuotedPrintableCodec, URLCodec

public interface Decoder

Provides the highest level of abstraction for Decoders.

This is the sister interface of Encoder. All Decoders implement this common generic interface. Allows a user to pass a generic Object to any Decoder implementation in the codec package.

One of the two interfaces at the center of the codec package.

Method Summary

Modifier and Type	Method and Description
java.lang.Object	decode(java.lang.Object source) Decodes an "encoded" Object and returns a "decoded" Object.

Method Detail

decode

java.lang.Object decode(java.lang.Object source)
                 throws DecoderException

Decodes an "encoded" Object and returns a "decoded" Object. Note that the implementation of this interface will try to cast the Object parameter to the specific type expected by a particular Decoder implementation. If a ClassCastException occurs this decode method will throw a DecoderException.

Parameters:

source - the object to decode

Returns:

a 'decoded" object

Throws:

DecoderException - a decoder exception can be thrown for any number of reasons. Some good candidates are that the parameter passed to this method is null, a param cannot be cast to the appropriate type for a specific encoder.